Women Physicist of the Month - 2012

About CSWP Woman Physicist of the Month Award

February

Elizabeth Simmons, Michigan State University
Elizabeth Simmons is the complete package.  She is an eminent theoretical physicist, a highly successful dean of a college, a terrific communicator with the ability to convey the excitement of physics to her students and to the general public, and she is an outstanding mentor for junior women in science.  

Elizabeth received her degrees from Harvard (A.B. '85, Ph.D. '90) and Cambridge (M.Phil. '86).  Dr. Simmons' work in theoretical particle physics focuses on electroweak symmetry breaking, with a recent emphasis on Higgsless physics at the LHC, and on phenomenology at the LHC.  She has authored over 120 publications in particle physics, but also several papers each in condensed matter theory, condensed matter experience, education and outreach, academic leadership and faculty development, and on women in science.  

Professor Simmons' numerous awards include the National Merit Scholar ('81), NSF Graduate Fellow ('85), Curie ('93), NSF CAREER ('95), DOE OJI ('95), APS Fellow ('02), and AAAS Fellow ('11) awards, as well as continuous grant funding from the NSF and DOE throughout her faculty career.

What makes Elizabeth's career truly remarkable is that she has also excelled as an administrator, serving as Director ('03-'07) of MSU's Lyman Briggs School, guiding it to College status, and serving as its first Dean (since '07).  At the same time she is a volunteer mentor to the 11 other female faculty members in MSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy, and has taken on various outreach assignments with the primary purpose of engaging more girls and young women in physics.

January

Helen Caines, Yale University
Helen Caines is one of the top scientists working in the field of Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions.  Dr. Caines is also an exceptional scientist and mentor.  She is a creative and forward thinker when it comes to collecting, evaluating, and interpreting experimental data, and as a member of a large collaboration, she has distinguished herself as a primary driving force behind many analyses.  

Dr. Caines serves as an example of a hubris-free approach to doing science that is pragmatic and inspiring.  She is also a hands-on mentor, spending her working and after hours helping junior scientists at all levels of their science journey--from writing code, to helping direct analyses, to honing presentation and writing skills.  Helen has spent a prodigious amount of time editing papers, debugging code, preparing students for conferences and polishing theses.  

For many years Helen served as one of the STAR experiment's physics working group conveners, then as deputy spokesperson, in addition to her duties on the faculty at Yale.  She is an elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics, she co-manages the STAR upgrades and she is the Deputy Chair of the STAR Council.

Despite her many commitments Helen Caines is incredibly generous with her time when it comes to students and post-docs.  One does not have to be in her Yale group to seek advice and benefit from her wisdom and foresight.  Moreover, Helen is an exceptionally reliable and kind person.  She has become a friend to all of her students, whether they have stayed in the field or moved on.  For young people in the field, she is a welcome example of how one should comport oneself, be low-key, yet successful, dedicated, and forward-looking in one's science career.